Suspect’s Uncle Gives Scathing Interview: ‘They Do Not Deserve to Live on This Earth’

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One of the two bombing suspects’ uncles, Alvi Tsarni, spoke with local media in Maryland. (Image: WBZ-TV)

Two Maryland uncles of the suspected Boston bombers Friday morning gave separate interviews with a local TV station. One uncle said his nephews “do not deserve to live on this earth.”

Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., who claims to be the uncle of suspected bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who remains at large, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in Watertown, Massachusetts, by police Thursday night, told The Associated Press that the men lived together near Boston and have been in the United States for about a decade. They came from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars.

Tsarni spoke with WBZ-TV in a phone interview. He described his nephew (Dzhokhar) as a “nice, quiet boy” and noted having no relationship with his nephews for a “number of years.” The older brother (Tamerlan), Tsarni said, was a “loser,” not finishing school and not knowing what he has been doing.

This undated photo provided by the vkontakte website shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been on the run, described as “armed and dangerous” and suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing. His brother, Tamerlan, was killed during a violent police chase. The two ethnic Chechen brothers came from Dagestan, a Russian republic bordering the province of Chechnya. (Photo: AP/vk.com)

After getting more details of what he knew of his older brother’s sons, Tsarni said the connection of the nephews to the bombing is “devastating.” He noted the father of his nephews living in Russia with his wife.

Tsarni said he has no idea why this nephews would do such a thing. He later revealed that the last time he spoke with Tamerlan, the suspected bomber said he had “been in Islam.”

This image released by the FBI Thursday shows a man who is reportedly Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It is this suspect who is said to have been killed Thursday night. (Photo: FBI)

“I told him, ‘listen, Islam always been there. You just do your business, work, go to school, be useful, know why you came to America,’” Tsarni said in the interview.

The reporter on the phone with Tsarni later is the first to inform him that Tamerlan was killed overnight.

“He deserved this,” Tsarni said. “He absolutely deserved this.”

Tsarni expresses his surprise, noting he he saw two pictures in a Russian newspaper he was reading Thursday night where he didn’t recognize the men he hadn’t seen since he was younger. Friday morning, his wife showed him other photos released from the FBI, which he said he then recognized them.

The distress of Tsarni and his wife can be heard over the phone as the news of Tarmerlan’s death and that they had killed one police officer and wounded another sank in.

“I don’t believe any of my nephews is involved in any of this, this horrible incident,” Alvi Tsarni said.

The reporter asked what the men were doing in Boston.

“Yesterday he called me, at 7 p.m.,” Alvi Tsarni said, explaining how family problems had prevented he and the nephew that was shot from speaking for several years. “So yesterday he called me and said forgive me for this, like, not talking together, I mean each other.”

Given Alvi Tsarni’s distress over his nephew’s death, the reporter and a man offscreen express that they are sorry for his family.